When the media rediscovers the North

Now every so often the media discovers a place called the North.

The Dinner Hour Wigan,  Eyre Crow, 1874

In the 19th century observers from the south and indeed as far away as France and Germany made the journey north to our great industrial cities to report on how steam, machinery and textiles were transforming what had been small Georgian towns into densely populated places of enterprise and industry.

Along with creating new concentrations of people in remote valleys where a single textile mill or coal mine took advantage of fast flowing water courses and rich veins of the dark stuff.

The visitors marvelled at the new ways of production, were repelled by the awful housing conditions and shuddered at the life expectancy of many who worked in the factories, foundries, and dyeworks. 

As early as 1776 Matthew Boulton, who had teamed up with James Watt to make and sell steam engines, proudly announced to James Boswell, “I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have – POWER”

And just under two centuries later, the historian Asa Briggs described Manchester as “the shock city of the Industrial Revolution”*.

The Forging of the North, Observer, 1965

In between, novelists, social observers and Government officials regularly reported on the energy, novelty and squalor they found in the North, while in the years after the Great War, writers like George Orwell wrote vividly of the decline in the heavy industries, and its impact on unemployment and life chances.

Not that this should surprise anyone who lives in the North or that it remains a topical subject for political pundits, news programmes and journalists, who picked over the bones of the Northern Power House between 2010 and 2016 and more recently all the promises of “Leveling Up”.

As ever the devil is in the detail as many who have made a train journey from Manchester to Leeds or Sheffield will testify.

All of which is an introduction into a collection of old colour supplements from the Sunday Times, and the Observer, that came north with me nearly four decades ago

In 1965 the Sunday Times looked at how traditional values had changed in the North, including an iconic picture of two women out in Elland in West Yorkshire with their hair in rollers half hidden under scarves.

A year later and the Observer weighed into the topic with three part look at the North.  The first focused on “The Forging of the North” which examined “the story of the national epic”, ranging over all the basic heavy industries, the great northern cities as well as the smaller towns and villages and a collection of “Victorian worthies” most of whom have faded into obscurity.**

Sadly, the second of the three has been lost but was on the decline of the basic industries, while the third looked at “New fortunes old Myths”.  

Manchester skyline, 1965, Observer Magazine, 1965

Reading through the six articles of number three 58 years on I am struck by the mix of factual and perceptive reporting which is peppered throughout with  more than a few stereotypical assumptions.  

So, one article pointed out the inadequacy of some civic planning departments reporting that “When John Millar, Manchester’s new chief planner arrived in 1961 charged with redeveloping the crumbling central area, he had a staff of one elderly man…..[which meant that] when the development boom reached the Northern cities in the early 1960s places like Manchester hadn’t even sufficient staff to insist on comprehensive redevelopment orders.  Reluctantly they were bulldozed into accepting piecemeal schemes”.

I don’t doubt the accuracy of the statement but can’t square it with the sweeping and exciting plans of post war Manchester laid out in the City’s 1945 Plan.  But then it might be the difference between the plan and its execution.

Manchester 2021

Away from the factual reporting there was a slightly “southern prejudice” reflected in the surprise that northern working class women had discovered fashion.

And so half way through a piece on “The New North” was a caption under a photograph of some mill girls which ran “Young people in the North today follow and make fashion.  Above stylishly dressed and coiffed girls in a mill in New Mills”, as if factory girls had not always been keen on fashion and looking good.   

A cursory glance at the idealized painting the Dinner Hour, Wigan, by Eyre Crow from 1874 shows a group of young women with colourful scarves, shawls and hairdos which are carefully protected by hair nets.***

And it turns up again on a photograph of the new town of Peterlee in County Durham with its street of modern houses and piles of NCB coal which have been delivered to the curb side.  

Now having lived in the North East I know about the coal, but can’t quite escape that other historic southern notion that working class families kept their coal in the bath …… those of course of them who had a bath.

But the prize must go to the last article “Nothing Fancy in Coronation Street” where “Shirley Conran has a typical North Country meal with Violet Carson – television’s Ena Sharples”.  The dishes offered up were Bacon ribs on onion, Lancashire hotpot, Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding and Bakewell Tart. 

The Avenue, Spinneyfields, 2021

All of which could be found anywhere in the country and certainly on the table in our house in south east London.  

Added to which was the final comment on wine in the North.

Both my parents who were from the North and the Midlands would have smiled at Cyril Ray who was then the wine columnist for the Observer who concluded the article with “Lancashire would rock with laughter if I recommended a wine to go with hot pot. Stout is the thing”.

I await stories of hair rollers, and a succession of examples where "northern life styles" are a part of essential life from Watford down to Bristol and across to Caney Island and Norfolk.

Leaving me to go off and pour over the accompanying commentaries on life in the North in the age of Levelling Up, and remember that it was Doctor Who who said, "Every planet has a North".

Location, that big place called the North

First posted 2022. 

Pictures; , The Dinner Hour, Wigan. The Forging of the North, Observer, January- February, 1966, Eyre Crowe, 1874, Manchester City Art Galleries, and Manchester in 2021 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities, 1963

**The Forging of the North, Observer Magazine, January-February, 1965

***The Dinner Hour, Wigan, Eyre Crowe, 1874, Manchester City Art Gallery, https://manchesterartgallery.org/collections/title/?mag-object-2265

On the High Street with Mr Rideway in 1933

I am standing outside numbers 116 & 118 Eltham High Street in 1933.

And this I know because in that year our old friend Llwyd Roberts painted the two properties which were just up from the old Castle pub.

At 118 there was the saddler William Barnes who had occupied the property from at least 1919 while nu 114 was the business premises of Charles Rideway who ran a dairy.

I can track Mr Rideway back to 1901 on the High Street selling his milk and by 1933 he seems to have diversified into sweets, chocolate and tobacco.

His immediate neighbour had been Arthur Moody who in 1919 described himself as a picture framer, and may still have been there when Mr Roberts painted the picture.

All of which just leaves William Barnes who had taken over the business from George French around 1919.

Now I don’t know whether the saddling business of Mr French was not doing so well but sometime between 1901 and 1911 he began renting out some of the building.

In room there was Charlotte Eliza Rose who at 71 described herself as a widow and in another were Mr and Mrs Brading.

So there are a lot of leads to follow up, including when the French family moved on, why Mr Rideway decided to diversify and how long his dairy continued to deliver the milk to Eltham residents after 1933.

I know that he died in 1954 and by then was living in Park View which is now Passey Place and given that he had seven children they may be much more to be revealed.

And the children do help place when the family arrived in Eltham.  The first three were born in Somerset between 1892 and 1896 while their fourth was born in Eltham in 1898.

And the key too much of the research will be the yearly street directories along with the electoral registers which are available down at the Heritage Centre and which will allow us to follow the movements of Mr Rideway, Mr Barnes and Mr Moody.

In the course of which we may come up with advert for Mr Rideway's business.

But for now I am interested in Mrs Charlotte Eliza Rose who was born in Eltham and had been married for 51 years, but that is for another time.

Picture; 116-118 Eltham High Street 1933, Llwyd Roberts.

Source material, census returns, 1901-11, Post Office London Directory 1909, 1919, and Electoral Roll 1932

What a difference 68 years makes …….. deep in Chorlton

Now here is an image of Chorlton which will nudge some memories.

We are on that twisty path which leads off from Brookburn Road, following the line of the Brook.

I have walked it countless times over the years, but only always remember it as a tree lined route into the heart of the meadows.

As such on a wet February day with the light fading fast it can be a magical place, which is no less so in high summer when the dense vegetation makes it a place where you can feel quite alone.

Originally the road had been constructed to give access to the sewage plant which was built and enlarged from the 1870s.

Before that the area which we now call the Meadows, and which was part of the flood plain for the Mersey had been farmed as meadowland, which is a type of farming dating back to the 17th century and involves careful flooding of the land at intervals, for the production of early grass to feed the cattle.

In the 1930s, bits were used for tipping rubbish and more recently it has become part of the Mersey Valley, whose wardens dramatically altered the landscape with whole planting of trees.

So, this picture is a revelation of how it once looked.  The caption says, “Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Brookburn Road, Withington Sewage Works, Boy Scouts Hut, Entrance to Manchester Corporation (Rivers' Dept), Withington Sewage Works from Brookburn Road, Boy Scouts Hut in middle distance”.

Leaving me just to say, ......... step forward those who remember it as such.

Location; Chorlton

Picture; Entrance to Manchester Corporation (Rivers' Dept), Withington Sewage Works from Brookburn Road, Boy Scouts Hut in middle distance, 1958, R.E. Stanley,  courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

The twisty, turny tale of Elizabeth Jane Dean …….. Didsbury, Manchester and Heaton Mersey

If there were  ever any pictures of the people who lived in Warburton Street at the beginning of the last century they have all been lost, or at best sit in an album, or cupboard, unlikely ever to see daylight.

No. 4 Warburton Street, 2020

And that is a shame because we know who they were, and something of their lives and families.

By extension it is possible to uncover many of the residents of the five cottages on the south side of the street back to 1845, along with the man who built and owned them.

The question as ever, is who to pick, and just what their stories might tell us about Didsbury.

I started with 1911, partly because I had the street directory for that year in front of me, and because the 1911 census was the most detailed of the eight census returns for the years 1841-1911.

Of the five, number 2 was occupied by John Crompton and Sons, and was listed as “paint stores”, no, 4 was William Richardson, plate layer, and no.6 was Mrs. Emma Smith who described herself as “Householder, but who I know was a “launderess”.

To which I can add that later in 1911, no 8, was home to the Schofield family, and that Mr. Walter Schofield was a “night soil man", and at no. 10 were the Blomileys, two of who worked as labourers, one was a charwoman and the youngest member of the family was a “gardener’s apprentice”.

And to complete the picture, while Mrs. Smith lived alone in her four roomed cottage, the six members of the Schofields has to manage in their two up two down, and the Blomiley’s to squeeze their lot into just three rooms.

The occupations of our residents might seem at variance with the popular image of Didsbury as a well healed and comfortably prosperous suburb of Manchester, but amongst the professionals, and wealthy business families there were still many who made their living from servicing “the better off”.

Barlow Moor, 1854

Mrs. Smith would have washed their linen, young Jane Blomiley cleaned their houses, and Mr. Schofield and one of the Blomiley’s were engaged as night soil men removing the contents of the privies of the rich.

And that left Mr. William Richardson a platelayer who ensured that the tracks on the stretch of line from Didsbury Railway Station to Manchester  Central were up to the scratch.

But instead of these families it is the story of Miss Elizabeth Jane Dean who captured my interest.

In the January of 1911 she was living on the opposite side of street, by the April had moved to Countess Road, of Hardman Street and earlier had lived at both no. 4, as well as no. 1 Warburton Street.

Added to which she spent her early years in the heart of the city in the space between the Rochdale and Ashton Canals behind Great Ancoats Street.

She was born in Didsbury in 1860 and was living on Warburton Street by the following year with her mother and sister. Over the next few years, the family moved to Hardman Street, but are lost to the records after 1866, until Elizabeth Jane turned up in Ancoats on Lees Street in 1871, living with her grandmother.

Elizabeth Jane's Manchester, 1881

Just where her mother was living is unclear, and a decade later Elizabeth Jane is just a few streets away, staying with her uncle and aunt, and described herself as a “Winder”, before reappearing in Didsbury, back with her mother on Warburton Street in 1891.

Trying to unpick the story underneath the census return is complicated, open to speculation and may just not be my business.

But her mother at some point had married a Mr. Blomiley, but by 1891 was a widow.

She shared the house with a son who carried the name Blomiley, and Elizabeth Jane, and a grandson aged two, whose surname was Dean.

It would be easy to leap to the conclusion that the young grandson was Elizabeth Jane’s, and certainly a decade later Elizabeth Jane acknowledged that this was her son and records a second one born in 1896 when she would have been 36.

All of which is rather murky and leaves me reflecting on what Elizabeth Jane might have made of her life in the city, in an area sandwiched between those two canals, and surrounded by textile factories, iron works and coal yards.

It goes without saying that this new world of noise, steam, and  drab streets would have been a world away from Didsbury which in the 1870s still had the appearance of a rural community even if it was filling up with houses and people.

I cannot be sure just when Elizabeth Jane gave up the factory and the house on the street by the canal, but her eldest son was born in Didsbury in the summer of 1888, which gives us a possible date.

Her later life was spent as a “tailoress”, and the last reference to her so far comes from the 1911 census which records her living on Countess Street, just minutes away from where she began life in 1860, living with her eldest son, and an Elizabeth Ann Woods aged 31.

A decade earlier Miss Woods was described as the foster sister of our Elizabeth Jane, which raises some intriguing questions about who her parents were given that she lived at no. 4  Warburton Street with Mary Blomiley and Elizabeth Jane.

Heaton Bank House, 1851

So that is about it.

We began on Warburton Street, and have pretty much ended up there, having travelled into the city and back out again, explored the occupations of some of the residents and along the way discovered a little of the life of one Didsbury resident.

But not quite, because just as I was finishing, I came across Mary Dean, who had been born in 1828, baptized in St James Parish Church, and at the age of 32 had given birth to Elizabeth Jane. Her father was a handloom weaver, and in 1841 the family lived in Barlow Moor.

Ten years later and Mary was a employed as a house servant at Mersey Bank House in Heaton Norris, whose owner was the grand Sir Ralph Pendlebury, who proudly recorded on his census return that he was not only a Knight but a factory owner, “employing 170 hands”.

All of which I think will takes us off on a new journey.

But before I do, I am adding a comment from John S Horton, "Sir- regarding the gentleman engaged as a plate layer, being an ex railwayman born in Didsbury but growing up in Kent, 'platelayers' worked on and were allocated 'patches' of line for which they were responsible for maintaining, not only the track but also the vegetation on the embankments and drainage, but the 'patch' was only 2 miles long, and therefore the gentleman would not have been responsible nor would it be possible for him to maintain the line as far as Manchester Central. Such a distance would have engaged several Plate layers or even gangs to maintain however I am happy to be corrected if my understanding is incorrect".

Adding, "sorry to have disrupted your wonderful tale, - the platelayer would have been under the authority of the “District Engineer” . Said platelayer would notify the signalman of his “direction of work” be it towards “Withington and Albert Park” Station ( Down Line) or towards the bridge over the track carrying “Kingsway”., (Up Line). 

The signalman would notify the platelayer of any reported track issues by train crew, be it “wet patch” caused by blocked drainage, making the train bounce as it went over and if at line speed could cause a derailment, engaging the platelayer having to “dig out the offending patch and re pack with fresh ballast” or by simply jacking up the track with his portable bottle jack and placing a simple soup tin full or less of small stones/ gravel to level the track up. I could go on and on but don’t want to bore you lo

".

Location; Didsbury, Manchester, and Heaton Mersey

Pictures; No. 4 Warburton Street, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Barlow Moor, 1854, & Heaton Mersey, 1854, from the OS map of Lancashire, 1854, Elizabeth Janes’ Manchester between the two canals, 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association,  http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

Remembering a lost Chorlton farm from over 88 years ago

Now I am looking at two pictures of Park Brow Farm which was doing the business of growing food from before the start of the 19th century.

And what makes the two pictures all the more remarkable is that I know one of the sons of the last farmer.

He is Oliver Bailey and his family ran the farm from sometime after 1911 and before that had been on Chorlton Row from the 1760s.*

Over the years Oliver has made available a whole heap of family documents from the contract his ancestor signed with the Egerton’s back in the middle of the 18th century to receipts for night soil from the 1850s, house and farm inventories and lots more.

Added to which he was able to describe in some detail the inside of Hough End Hall before it was much knocked about by a succession of developers in the late 1960s.

And his memories have also opened up the story of Park Brow Farm before it too was developed with that small group of houses to the west of the farm house and the barn conversion.

So I shall start with the farm yard and this photograph from 1938.

Oliver tells me that one of the young lads is his brother and the building behind them with the tall chimney was “used for boiling up p food bought from the UCP,” while the two elephants Mr Bailey hosted when the travelling circus arrived were watered from the wooden pump directly in front of the building.

And given that this was the farm yard, the two downstairs rooms of the building to our left were the kitchen and office, with the living room and dining room facing south onto the garden which backed on to Sandy Lane.

Now I could go on but think I will save the rest for another day, which will include more pictures of the front of the farm house, something on the certificates the farm won and a piece of garden furniture which links the farm to the old Assize Courts in town.

Those intrigued by the idea of hosting two elephants can read the story on blog which will also offer up some fine pictures of the Bailey bulls on the land where Adastral House now stands and can summon up in their imagination an image of the young Oliver driving live stock through Chorlton back to Park Brow from the railway station.

All of which just leaves me to ponder on how rural is the scene of the farm house when this picture was taken in the summer of 1940.

Location; Park Brow Farm, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures, the farm yard, 1938, m17381, and the farmhouse looking north, 1940, m17388, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Chorlton Row is now Beech Road

What a difference a century makes ............. looking down to Eltham Hill in 2015 and 1915

I like this view from St John’s church yard down towards Eltham Hill.

It is one I have taken for granted but nicely shows just how Eltham has changed in a century and reminds me how I have yet to track down the story of Eltham Brewery and the Kenward brothers who were listed as the owners in 1914.

The brewery was originally further up the High Street but so far I haven’t discovered much in the way of any references to either building.

And that is a bit odd given the number of people who will have once worked for the Kenward brothers.

That said I did come across a James Kenward at Rosslyn on Footscray Road in the 1890s but he appears not to have been connected with brewing, so the hunt goes on.

In the meantime I will also go in search of shop keepers who occupied the properties on the south side of the road.

Location; Eltham, London












Pictures; looking down to Eltham Hill, 2015 from the collection of Elizabeth and Colin Fitpatrick,  and the brewery in 1915 GRW 325 in 1917, GRW 215, http://boroughphotos.org/greenwich/ courtesy of Greenwich Heritage Centre, http://www.greenwichheritage.org/site/index.php

A military academy in the High Street and that other Eltham Lodge

Cliefden House, 1909

Mr Thomas Hopkirk ran his military academy from Cliefden House in the High Street during the middle decades of the 19th century.

This grand 18th century property is still there on the High Street opposite Passey Place.

It was built sometime around 1720 with an eastern addition dating from the mid 19th century.

Now I can’t be exactly sure when Mr Hopkirk opened his doors but it will have been around 1849 for that was the year he and his wife Charlotte baptized their daughter in the parish Church and it may well have been Mr Hopkirk who added the extension.

Together this made for a large 17 roomed house which could accommodate “The Preparatory Military Academy” with its 32 students.

They were aged between 11 and 18 and were from all over England as well as Ireland with a significant group from the empire.  Along with Mr Hopkirk there was another teacher, a cook, a nurse and three house maids.

Originally the house was fronted with a tall wall behind which was a small garden, all of which was swept away when the High Street was widened.

Behind those walls Mr Hopkirk set about the serious business of running “a school for young gentlemen.”*

His reputation may well have been made in the school he ran in Woolwich on Frances Street and with an eye to a good location this first “Preparatory Military Academy” was sited close to the barracks.

There were 500 of these academies in Kent in 1851 with 15,411 students and in the half century before the numbers had waxed and waned, a situation which pretty much carried on during the decade before Mr Hopkirk had established himself in Eltham.**

Now this period is still a little murky but the establishment was listed in Baggot’s History, Gazetteer and Directory for Woolwich in 1847 and it will just be a matter of trawling the directories for the years before that date to determine when it was opened.

What I do know is that six years earlier Thomas had been employed as “the mathematical master” along with a classics teacher and a writing master in a school in Totteridge which was once a village in Hertfordshire and is now part of the borough of Barnet.

Like his own academy this was designed for young gentlemen of whom there were 69 aged between 9 and 17 and all born somewhere else.  Nor were they alone for during the mid 19th century there were two other private schools in the area.

Both Thomas and his colleagues were aged just 20, and there is no indication of who the owner was, nor have I come across any details on his background which makes it difficult to work out how he raised the capital to start his academies.

The west end of the High Street,in 1844,  nu 305 is Cliefden House

As ever the answers will turn up as will the date when he closed the school and moved on.

It was still there in 1861 but had gone by 1871 and it may just be that we can narrow it to sometime between 1865 when he was registered to vote in Eltham and three years later when his address is given on the register as London.

But like all research this has to be qualified with the observation that he is still listed in the Post Office Directory in 1868 on the High Street.

What makes it more difficult is that he and Charlotte are missing from the 1871 census and don’t reappear until a decade later, by which time they are in Dulwich at the appropriately named Eltham Lodge.

Such must have been impact Eltham had on the couple.  It is of course just possible that the house had already acquired the name but I doubt it.

And it was here that Thomas died in March 1881 leaving a personal estate effects valued at under £30,000 and Charlotte in 1912.

All that is left is to record that he in 1865 he voted Tory and that he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Pictures; Cliefden House Eltham from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/bookpages/i001.htm detail of Eltham High Street, 1844 from the Tithe map for Eltham courtesy of Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone, http://www.kent.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/kent_history/kent_history__library_centre.aspx

*R.R.C. Gregory, The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909

**  Census of Great Britain, 1851 Education.  Along with a similar census in religious worship this was undertaken in the April of 1851 with the general census